Low Fat Fiesta

Sometimes, you just want some good old junk food, or possibly some modestly healthy take on good old junk food.

When Julie and I go to The Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach for live jazz on a weekend day, we occasionally will buy their nachos.  What they bring to our table must be four iches high and fills a platter about a foot in diameter.  By comparison, consider the movie theater version of nachos: 40 chips with 4 ounces of "cheese" in a little cardboard tray. 

Yes, the Lighthouse Nachos are a terrific value and can easily feed a table full of people, but sometimes we tackle it with two or three people,  getting suprisingly far through layer after layer of tortilla chips, cheese, beans, guacamole, sour cream and, to make us feel like we're eating vegetables, pico de gayo and sliced jalapenos.  Add chicken for a couple of bucks more, and still pay less than the price of two movie theater trays of chips and Queso.  There must be ten movie theater nachos in that pile of goodness.

Diners can gloat in value-shopping awesomeness, because  the live jazz show is usually free, as opposed to a $12 movie theater ticket.

However, consider this: typical movie theater nachos are about 1,100 calories with 59 grams of fat, a third of which are saturated, if that means anything to you.

In short, you have to be very tall or a professional athlete to get away with splitting the Lighthouse Nachos between four people without exceeding your daily recommended calorie intake.

But perhaps you still want that spicy flavor with some crunch.

Here is an easy and tasty Quick-Clean Cuisine Low Fat Fiesta recipe that makes a tasty dinner, lunch or snack.

Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper, and then put two or three of your favorite flour tortillas on it.  Avoid overalapping tortilla edges, but they can hang off the side of the cookie sheet a little if necessary.  I usually buy thin and cheap Romero's tortillas for myself and Mission Low Carb tortillas for Julie.  For this reciepe, I strongly recommend regular tortillas, as thin as possible (lower calorie), because they toast better than the low carb ones.  This is a splurge treat, after all, not an every day meal.  You can cut them into chips or strips if you like, but I usually just make gigantic round tortilla chips.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and stick the tortillas in the oven while it warms up.  Set a timer for about 6 to 10 minutes, depending on how fast your oven heats.  If it is super fast, check at 3 or 4 minutes to make sure the tortillas aren't burning.  Once you know how long it takes cooking them one time in your oven, adjust your time for your oven for future tortilla bakes.

Now that you have your "chips" cooking, open a can of Rosarita No Fat Zesty Salsa Refried Beans. Yes, this is haute cuisine with complex, top of the line ingredients, but you can substitute whatever refried beans you like, and you'll still be better off than movie theater nachos.

 

Put half of a 16 ounce can of beans (or however much you think you will eat, adjusting cooking time) into a microwave safe bowl.  Stir in one to two table spoons of grated Mexican cheese.  If you happen to have some leftover taco meat, you can add that too, but it isn't necessary. 

 

Thoroughly cover the bowl in wax paper, because beans can splatter if it gets too hot (no es bueno para Q-CC, si?).  Heat it for about 60 to 90 seconds.  If it isn't hot when you check it, stir it and put it back in for another 30 seconds.

Check to see if your tortillas are light brown.  If they are, take them out of the oven and proceed to enjoy them.  Keep checking until they're done, and then make a note of how long it took.  Eat off a plate or even a napkin or paper towel, if you find rinsing a plate lightly to be too strenuous.

My closing comment will only be clearly understood by those who went to a high school like mine that served refried bean burritos from a stainless steel food truck on campus.  The toasted tortilla with beans tastes almost exactly like those high fat chimichanga-like burritos deep fried by the food truck.

I think you can figure out how to clean up after this meal, but the most complicated part is that you will, if you followed the recipe exactly, have a half can of refried beans leftover.  Rather than washing the bowl, you can, assuming you will be eating your leftovers, put the rest of the refried beans in with another 1 or 2 tablespoons of grated cheese, cover it with Cling Wrap and put it in the refrigerator for another fiesta in a couple of days.

By the way, I suppose this should be enough for two people, but if you eat it all, you're still not going to hate yourself in the morning.

Baked Chicken Breast With Low Carb Stuffing

Have you ever noticed that when you go to a fine dining establishment like McDonalds, a non-battered-and-fried chicken breast sandwich often costs more than a hamburger, but at the grocery store, chicken usually costs less than beef?

At home, barbecuing either meat takes about the same amount of effort, but if like me your apartment doesn't have outdoor space sufficient for a barbecue, you must look instead at your stove, wondering how much grease will splatter when pan frying a burger.  The idea of baking a burger is somehow simply wrong, although meat loaf is a tasty alternative if you can wait over an hour to eat.

Believe it or not, baking chicken is pretty easy and takes about half an hour.  With the help of Reynolds Non-Stick Pan Lining Paper, it can even be Quick-Clean Cuisine.

In addition to Pan Lining Paper, you will need:

6 pieces of Low-Carb Bread
*2 fresh (not frozen) boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
sprinklings of ground thyme
sprinklings of ground pepper
1/2 cup of shredded carrots
1 large celery stalk
1 table spoon of onion flakes
8 ounces of chicken broth

To make this as quickly as possible, you need to be able to make toast at the same time you prepare the chicken.  It's not rocket science, but if it makes you feel less stressed, you can make the toast before starting the chicken.

Toast 6 pieces of bread  

Pre-heat  your oven to 400 degrees.

In a lined baking dish, trim the boneless, skinless chicken breasts into thinner fillets.  Hand trim any excess fat or skin that will most likely be present. 

Sprinkle the chicken lightly with thyme and pepper.  That's sufficient seasoning to create a tasty meal, because chicken has a somewhat salty flavor naturally (although perhaps I find that true because I insist on buying only chickens raised on Frito-Lay products served from pottery bowls made by Navajo native Americans rather than chickens who subsist on whatever they manage to peck out of the dirt).

Put the chicken dish in the pre-heated oven and set a timer for 15 minutes.

On the plate you will be eating from, cut the toast into strips and then cross-wise into cubes.  I've found I can cut about three pieces of toast into strips at a time without squashing them too much, but then cross-wise seems to be less predictable.  In any case, don't spend more than five minutes making cubes from all of the toast, or you're being too exacting and will face a government crackdown.  Similarly cut celery into small pieces. 

Put the diced toast and celery in a sauce pan with onion flakes, shredded carrots and chicken broth, along with light sprinklings of pepper and thyme.  Stir as it cooks over medium heat on the stove top

When the timer dings (or 15 minutes passes, for you Luddites who refuse to use the latest timer technology), take the chicken dish out of the oven and transfer the stuffing out of the sauce pan and into the dish with the chicken.  Most of the stuffing should be on top of the chicken.

Put the dish back in the oven to bake for another 15 minutes.

While the chicken and stuffing bakes, wash and dry the sauce pan in which you made the stuffing.  Yes, this is a lot more work than typical Q-CC but significantly less than preparing Thanksgiving Dinner.

When the timer dings, TURN OFF THE OVEN, and check to see if the chicken and stuffing look done. They probably are, but if not, check your facebook page before plating it for dinner.

This has proven to be exactly enough for two people to eat, but for one person, there should be a nice leftover meal to enjoy for either lunch or dinner in the next day or two.  Simply put the leftovers into a small microwavable dish, cover  with Saran Wrap and refrigerate.

Wash your plate, and then wad up the pan lining paper and put the baking dish away.  Cleanup complete.

*You might prefer legs or wings, but I usually buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts (not to be confused with split chicken breasts, which also work for baked chicken, although I recommend skinning them before cooking, and obviously you also will have leftover bones, too, making them less q-cc compatible).  Frozen chicken also works, but you obviously need to allow more time for it to cook.  Adding this asterisked item adds a certain amount of professionalism to this recipe, which will make you take it more seriously.  If you always buy boneless, skinless chicken breast, you don't need to read this section.  Carry on.